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Microcontroller Programming Fundamentals

microcontroller programming embedded system c language hardware

This page describes microcontroller programming, microcontroller C programming, devices, cross compilers, etc. This tutorial on microcontrollers covers the following:

  • Microcontroller tutorial
  • What is a microcontroller
  • 8051 Microcontroller Architecture
  • Microcontroller hardware Interfacing
  • Microcontroller Timers
  • Microcontroller Interrupts
  • Microcontroller Serial Communication
  • Microcontroller Cross Compiler
  • Microcontroller programming
  • TI Microcontroller
  • ATMEL Microcontroller
  • ARM Microcontroller
  • Microcontroller Kit Vendors
  • Microcontroller versus Microprocessor

There are various ways one can do microcontroller programming; C and assembly language are popularly used. After the program is written for specific tasks in either C or assembly language, it needs to be converted to a hexadecimal file. This file will be burnt onto the microcontroller’s internal ROM if the program is small, or on external program memory if the program is large.

Programming Devices

Microcontroller programmers, flash programmers, or EPROM programmers are used for programming the device. Various such kits are available from the microcontroller device manufacturers themselves.

C Language Microcontroller Programming Example

The following microcontroller hardware circuit shows interfacing of an LED with port 1/pin no. 1. We will write a C program to switch ON and OFF the LED at some regular interval using a delay routine.

microcontroller interface led

As shown in the program above, the delay_1ms function introduces a delay of about 1 ms, which can be called in a for loop to generate a delay of your choice. Hence, delay_ms passed with argument 10 introduces 10ms of delay.

P1^1=1 switches OFF the LED, and P1^1=0 switches ON the LED. These instructions are placed in a while loop; hence, they will continuously run until the microcontroller circuit is powered ON.

The example program also explains how to configure the serial port to be used for interfacing an external device for serial communication at some baud rate.

microcontroller programming